Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with photo

How do you find the press images of a reality show?

clockworkjoe — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:59:48 -0800

I'd like to find high resolution versions of publicity photos from certain reality shows: Buck Wild, Duck Dynasty, Call of the Wildman, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Moonshiners. Obviously, the press is given access to these images so I wonder if any of those high resolution images are available to the public. I know I can find web quality JPEGs on the websites of these shows, but I'd like to find high quality TIFFs or something like that.

I know that photo!

MayNicholas — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:39:48 -0800

My husband shoots & sells stock photos online. We recently discovered a local business has been using one of his images on their fleet of vehicles. They never bought it. He would like to get paid for it. How to proceed and is it worth it? The photo in question is of a generic landmark. Lots of people have taken similar photos. He first noticed it a few years ago while driving and never thought much of it because it is such a generic pic. It was one of those "Huh, that looks like my pic. Nah." Then he forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago we were out shopping and when we came out of the store one of those vehicles happened to be parked next to ours. He got a good look at it.

There are certain aspects of his photo that are unmistakable despite the generic nature of the image. He manipulated/ mirrored certain aspects to fill in some spots to make it more visually appealing (making it one of a kind). This is definitely his photo. There is no question about this.
He uploaded said photo about 6 years ago to a popular stock photo website. He gets small pay outs every few months. He check his records and this local company never purchased the licence or the expanded licence for what they are using it for.

Just in case he missed it he called the local company and asked for the owner. He asked the owner where they got the photo on their vehicles because he really liked it and has been looking for a great image of this landmark. The owner said he took it himself. He said thank you and left it at that.

Should we speak to the company directly and tell them that they don't have the rights to use this image? They have it as their branding on a fleet of vehicles (50+) and have been using it for about 5 years. Should we look in to small claims court? Get a lawyer? Leave it be? We are not trying to put the company out of business or anything, but he would like to be paid for the image. The stole it from the stock photo website and cropped out the watermark. What would we even ask for as back payment? Is it even worth pursuing?

Looking for outdoor photo shoot location in NYC, Brooklyn preferred

Triscuitier — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:06:42 -0800

I'm starting an online clothing store and am hoping to put together a spring lookbook in two weeks. We're trying to find someplace pretty, like a park or community garden, where it won't cost us to shoot. It would also be nice if we didn't have to get a permit. Brooklyn is preferred, but we're open to anywhere it's easy to reach by subway. It's probably going to be 4 people (the photographer, the model, the makeup artist, and me). Equipment will include the camera, tripod, possibly a pop-up changing station, a rack of clothes, and possibly reflectors. Suggestions for locations would be much appreciated!

Making a photo less blurry

Prairie — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:06:26 -0800

I'm giving a photograph to my recently deceased friend's husband. It's a bit blurry, not terrible, but it really does show who she is. Is there a way to make it less blurry? Assume I have no expensive Photoshop or other program, just what comes in Microsoft package. And, feel free to give me simple instructions -- assume a limited computer knowledge. Many thanks.

Time-lapse camera automation

antonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:17:01 -0800

What's the easiest way to set up a time-lapse camera that takes a picture at regular intervals over the course of many months (and possibly years)? I just moved into a new office building, and a new one is being built across the street that will be over 20 stories tall. This building will take awhile to complete, and I think a time-lapse would be cool to put together. I have a pretty good vantage point to take photos from, but I don't know what I'll need! I'm willing to buy a cheap digital camera and a tripod (suggestions welcome), but don't know how to automate this process so it will just take photos at a given interval.

So I'm looking for suggestions on equipment to buy (on the cheap side of things - I don't have a set budget but I'd prefer not to spend more than a couple hundred bucks max), the frequency of pictures I should be taking for this project, the software I should use to put this all together (I have access to both OSX and Windows 7) and anything that I may be forgetting. I also have a Raspberri Pi if making use of that makes anything easier. Thanks!

Too legit to quit?

davidmsc — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:35:50 -0800

Photo submitted to TV station in Montana - the horses at first seem almost "inserted" or 'shopped into the photo, but on closer look, seem legit. Any experts want to take a crack and confirm/deny this is an unaltered photo? Imgur link.

Who is this picture of? (Yes, I know, "Of whom is this picture...")

dersins — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:30:08 -0800

A friend found this picture in the basement of his apartment building, and it's killing us to try to figure out who it is. A roomful (OK, a barful) of people were convinced that it is "someone", but we can't quite place who. If it weren't for the teeth, I'd almost say it's Andy Griffith, but, you know, perfect teeth. It appears to be a photograph printed onto canvas. The kraft paper on the back has the name, address and old-style phone number (CA 8-1555) of a framing store in downtown Portland that no longer exists rubber-stamped onto it. The old-style phone # dates it to quite some time ago (40's? 50's? 60's?), but other than that, we are stumped. Any thoughts, Metafilter?

Help me re-create this awesomely creepy doll

Neely O'Hara — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:39:51 -0800

When my partner started dating his now ex-wife, his first Hanukkah gift to her was an well-intentioned but ill-received doll that has become an ongoing joke for over 20 years. Now I want to see if I can have another doll made in the same manner, but I don't know where to look to have this done. So my partner had this doll created on a total whim - he had been walking in the west village sometime in the 80's, where he came across some novelty store that would make a doll personalized with your face. Each doll was made of cloth and stuffed, and came in a generic male or female body that is about 3 feet tall, with a blank head. The way it was personalized is that they would take your picture, print it on a cloth sleeve, and then secure the sleeve with your face printed on it over the blank head. The effect wound up hilariously creepy - a bland, cotton body, with a photo-realistic picture of one's head.

Needless to say, my partner's ex did not find this the most romantic first Hanukkah gift, and stuffed it into a closet, where it still managed to serve as the butt of many a joke all those years.

Fast forward two decades, where I get told the story of the infamous "Ted Doll" - not only was my partner's ex happy to show it to me, but she decided that the Ted Doll now gets to live with us. Ever since then, we take turns leaving the Ted Doll in varying locations in the house, even leaving notes to each other from the Ted Doll.

With my partner's birthday coming up, I had a flash of inspiration - I want to have an equivalent Neely Doll made, to keep the Ted Doll company and join him on adventures. But none of the personalized dolls I can find use photo reproductions of one's face. Does anyone know of a company that does this? Or a way I can make it myself? I'm hoping the hive mind can make my creepy doll idea become reality!

Is it even a tree farm I'm looking for?

komara — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:03:32 -0800

You know that last time you drove through Mississippi or Louisiana and you passed by acre after acre of pine trees, all in nice rows? Help me find a publicly-accessible spot like that near New Orleans so that I can use it as a background in a photo. I don't know if those are even tree farms per se, or just pine trees planted in nice straight rows for some other reason. I know I've seen them nearby - maybe off of I-10 or I-59 headed into Mississippi - but I'd rather not drive that far if I don't have to, and especially without knowing where they are in advance. Years ago I was able to locate a pine tree farm on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain via Google but now when I search all I find is Christmas tree farms, which I don't think are what I'm looking for.

I can find that the rows are done by geometric thinning and that the search term "pine plantation" might be more accurate, but it's not helping me find any of these near New Orleans.

Of course I also want to be accessing these lands legally, so I'd prefer not to just be pulled over on the side of the highway and hiking several yards in - I'd rather have permission from the land owner.

Where do I get universal 4x5 ground glass?

Brian Puccio — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:42:15 -0800

I've got this image of a piece of ground glass mounted in a standard 4x5 film holder. I've googled all sorts of things to try and describe what this is, but I cannot find where I can buy this. I've seen tons of pieces of ground glass that are for specific cameras, but that's not what I want. I want a piece of ground glass in (and sold with) a frame that makes it the exact size and thickness for putting into any sort of large format camera. Basically, what that picture shows. What is this and where do I buy it? Thanks!

I seem to ask a lot of questions about photos lately

jacquilynne — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:06:51 -0800

Can you recommend some scanning software for me? I need to scan a whole bunch of older photos, and I'd like to do it relatively quickly. I have an HP8500A Scanner/Printer combo, which is attached to a Windows Vista desktop.

My main requirement is that I be able to scan multiple photos at a time and have the software automatically break them up into individual images. My mother's came-with-her-printer scanner software did this, but mine doesn't seem to, or at least I haven't been able to figure out how. I've also tried to do it in Irfaan View and GIMP, and neither of those did it, either, that I could find.

Although my mother's did not do this, I've also determined that some software will deskew those images, as well, straightening up the alignment. That would also be nice.

If there's anything else I *should* be looking for in scanning software, feel free to tell me.

Normally I'd just go to download.com and pick whatever the highest rated thing is, but I'm getting a lot of stuff that's not image scanning software at all, and I don't know what the right keyword is to search to get just what I'm looking for. I don't mind paying a smallish amount for this software if I have to.

The end goal is to use the photos to make a photobook for my family, so this doesn't need to be a super high end solution, but I have about 150 photos to scan now, and I'd estimate this is only about 10% of the full set of photos to be dealt with.

How to make an email survey to identify people in a photo?

Joh — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:39:30 -0800

I have a good scan of the group photo from my grandparents wedding. I know who several of the people are in the photo, and I know that all my grandmother's eight brothers are in the group, but I do not know which brother is which. My Dad has made his best guesses, but he's not sure about many of them. I have recently made contact with several second cousins in the family while doing my genealogical research, so I thought I could get each of them to give me their best guesses in some sort of online survey, and compile the answers to get a sort of family crowd-sourced opinion. But how best to do this? In my head, this would take the form of making a survey somewhere like surveymonkey.com. There would be a question for each person in the photo where the answer is in the form of a) "I am certain this person is [fill in the blank with a name]" or b) "I think this person might be [fill in the blank with a name]" or c) "I do not know who this person is". However, it seems like surveymonkey won't be a good fit for this, as the free membership limits me to ten questions per survey, and the paid membership is $17 a month for a year, which is way too high for my needs.

Most of the people I want to send this to are not the most experienced internet users, so I want to keep it simple for them to use. I am also worried that it could be too onerous a task if there's a question for each person in the photo. Maybe it would be great if they could click on a hotspot over each person on the photo and enter their guess, along with whether they are sure or guessing. I could just email a copy of the photo and ask them to write down all the answers, but based on previous experience, correctly matching which person we think we are both talking about is error prone, since group photos don't delineate rows perfectly. Also would be cool if it was a link they could email onto other family members they think could help.

So, is there a better way to do this, or a better survey site to use? I don't mind paying a small fee to do this well, but a monthly fee with a year contract is overkill. I have no programming experience, so making something myself is impractical.

Can you explain to me this shadow-line phenomenon in a photo?

heyho — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:16:23 -0800

I feel like I understand a thing or two about light, but I can't figure out how/why this particular phenomenon happens. This photo I took shows a shadow line cast by my bank (on the right) that seems to just hang in the air. I can never see this with my eye, but it shows up in my photos sometimes, so far only when I'm shooting straight up.

What causes this? I mean, I fully understand that the bank building is blocking sunlight that would otherwise hit the nearby buildings, those cables, and everything on the ground, but why do I see a shadow that's not really cast on anything? This baffles me, as the light source is not coming from the direction of me, there was no visible smog, and it was a cool, crisp, bright, sunshiny October day.

I haven't tried to recreate it with any of my film cameras or a better digital because I'm sort of in an exclusive relationship with my little point & shoot at the moment, but I can't imagine this phenomenon is peculiar to this camera.

Looking for photo/artistic collage journals or books.

incandissonance — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:51:12 -0800

Fan of photo collage journals like Peter Beard and the late Dan Eldon's work. Can anyone point me to other similar artists? I'm a fan of photo and artistic journals that combine photographs with artistic techniques to create a separate work of art that sheds light on the life of the author. Examples would be Peter Beard and the late Dan Eldon. Anyone know other artists with similar "photo collage journals"?

iLapse won't let me export all my pictures. Now what?

guster4lovers — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:41:44 -0800

So I did a time-lapse and set the frame rate way too high. Now it will only export around 700 pictures to the camera roll and I can't figure out how to get the rest. Every time I get the photos from camera roll to iPhoto, iLapse just starts from the beginning again. So I can get the first 700 just fine, but not the rest. This sucks. Please tell me there's a solution! There are like 10,000 images in the app itself. When I try to export, I keep getting to 765 and then it just stops. Is there a program that will pull those out of the app itself, or something I coud do to choose different photos to export? I don't seem to be given the choice to export a range.

I can go through and individually delete pictures in the app, but with literally 10,000 pictures, that's going to take a really freaking long time.

Are there any hacks out there to solve this problem? I've searched teh interwebs and found very little helpful information.

Thanks everyone.

Selling my photo of someone else's art

Admiral Haddock — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:14:13 -0800

Someone has asked to license a photo I took of someone else's art. I have no right to the artist's work; I took the photo at a museum. I have no intention of licensing my photo unless and until appropriate arrangements are made with the artist and museum. How to proceed? I took a photo at a site-specific museum installation. The artist is well-known (but deceased), and the museum is established. Photography was permitted in the exhibit, though I assume it was for non-commercial use only.

I received an email asking to license my photo. I have not responded yet. I assume the person realizes that the image is of a work by the artist, and not my own creation (though I will of course impress that fact on him).

As these things go, I think I have a good image of this particular artwork. However, I fully realize that my copyright in the production of the photo does not give me any ownership over the subject matter, which lies in the artist's estate and/or the museum.

I wouldn't mind selling the image, but I would only do so with the consent of the estate and/or museum, as applicable; I have no intention of taking any liability for this image. I don't need the money (or the hassles if this were not papered properly).

How would I proceed? Of course, if the requester is writing an authorized bio of the artist, some of these questions would seem more easily resolved--so I can check in with him. Is this a question that I should send to the museum's media relations line? Will the estate and/or museum typically be separately compensated for their rights here? Can anyone point to a good model licensing agreement that disclaims ownership of the subject matter (to the extent such a form exists)? Also: the would-be licensee is in another country, FWIW.

You are not my attorney. (I am my attorney, though it happens I'm not an IP lawyer.) Again, I don't need the money and have no intention of buying myself a headache over this, so assume I will want to get every release possible for this.

How do you get your photo to look like this?

Kazimirovna — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:44:17 -0800

I like the look some photos have of only one spot being in focus and the edge areas being a bit out of focus like the one of the iron in this collage: http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/ How do I get it? How fancy of a camera do I need? Thanks!

Please help me find a drag and drop photo app for Ipad

citybuddha — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:27:05 -0800

I am looking for a drag and drop photo app for the ipad. Something that will let me import to ipad via drag and dropping while allowing me view and share photos on my ipad without having to sync through Iphoto.

Too Many Photo Apps

Quisp Lover — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:25:48 -0800

Help me delete redundant iOs photography apps. I own too many, and it's confusing. iOs photo apps are so featured-up that it's tough to track overlap. Here are the apps I own...can you tell me if any are obsolete due to the same features being built into other (hopefully superior) apps - which I either own already or can buy? I'd like to wind up with as few apps as possible.

Here's what I've got:
AutoStitch Panorama
Camera+
Canopy
CropForFree
FX Photo Studio
Hueless
Imgupr
Instagram
Koredoko
Photogene
PhotoStudio
PiconHand (Picasa web albums)
ProCamera
Snapseed
and SoftBox Pro for iPad (which I love and am keeping!

For starters, I'm figuring CropForFree must be superceded by at least one or two of the others I own.....?

Why is PHOTO B showing up instead of PHOTO A?

crossoverman — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:11:26 -0800

How/why is my Facebook profile pic turning up on emails I send from my Gmail account to Hotmail/Outlook? I have a gmail account, the email address that's associated with my Facebook account. My gmail account has PHOTO A assigned to it. My Facebook account has PHOTO B as a profile pic.

Now, for some reason, when my mother (who has a Hotmail/Outlook account) receives email from my gmail account, instead of the photo/icon attached being PHOTO A, she sees PHOTO B.

I'd rather people receiving my emails only get PHOTO A - and not whatever profile pic I've randomly assigned to Facebook that week. What settings do I need to change? At what end - Gmail or Facebook?

Quick turnaround photolab with scans in central London

caek — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:55:10 -0800

Does anyone know a photo lab in central London that can develop a totally bog-standard roll of colour Fujifilm? Two complicating and unfortunately non-negotiable factors: (1) I need the negatives digitally scanned (2) I need to drop the roll off on Thursday and either collect the scans on Friday, or be emailed links to the scans at a later date. I don't care about prints.

Can anyone help me sync the rest of my photo stream ?

aqueousdan — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 13:00:36 -0800

New iPad synced half my photos and won't get the rest... Now what? I have an iPhone which apparently backs up to iCloud. I then got a new iPad and set it up to connect to iCloud also.

All was well, I put my wifi details in and things seemed great. I was looking in my photo stream and photos were appearing. Then the wifi signal cut out and since then I cannot get the rest of my photos to appear whatever I try.

I tried syncing both devices to my windows computer. Nothing. I tried turning both off and on. Nothing.

Can anyone suggest me a fix for this as I can't see a way of forcing my photo stream to sync my photos.

(I wondered if I used the option to delete everything from the iPad and the started afresh that would work but I am unsure if that would delete all of my apps and photos from iCloud and my iPhone.)

hey, wanna see this picture of me looking awesome doing fun things?

PuppetMcSockerson — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 10:36:14 -0800

Narcissism filter: I love looking at pictures of me and my loved ones. I'd like to have more photos of my family up in the house but there are some snowflakey, silly issues... I have always loved having and looking at photos of the things I have done with people. When I was in university an entire wall in my doorm room was completely covered with photos that sticky-tac'd up. I started every year with a core set of "these were awesome times" photos and then added more throughout the year as I did things and got more awesome pictures. By the end of each school year I had probably between 75-100 photos up. I loved that wall.

Now that I'm all grown up and adult and stuff, I'm almost worse because I have a fiance and a step son and I love every minute of it. I/we take a lot of photos of our family activities, from the mundane (lawn mowing, playing boardgames, random pictures of the stuff we do day to day) to the more special (trip to the beach, decorating gingerbread house, vacations, etc). I love to look through them and see them. My wallpapers on my computers (home and work), my phone wallpaper, my phone lock screen, etc. are all pictures of me with my fiance and step son.

Sidenote: I'm not one of those "so busy taking pictures that I forget to enjoy what I'm doing" type. I usually take a few of whatever is going on and then put it away unless something totally photo-worthy happens.

So here is the thing: I actually think having pictures up on the walls to be often tacky. When I see personal pictures up I always think of old grandmothers that have their mantles and walls plastered with photos of every family member and every person they know. That, or I think of Samantha from Sex and the City where she got a giangtic picture of herself naked that she put up in her apartment because she thought she was so sexy and attractive. (I think I have the Samantha/vanity association because I am a bit vain, I know that I am photogenic, and I like to see pictures of myself because I frankly think I look better in photos than I do in real life. On top of that, one of my sisters has made fun of me for how I look in photos because she thinks I'm doing this whole act and posing thing when really I'm just smiling. She happens to be pretty unphotogenic so to her it is my flaw for not being unphotogenic as well I guess... Anyway, this has led me to be a little hesitant to put up photos of myself where I look nice lest she make fun of me again.)

So how do people put up photos of their family and themselves without it looking 1) tacky and cluttered and 2) vain? My fiance and I just got some really beautiful, modern, classy enagement shots done, including some fantastic family shots with his son, and I would love to print some off and hang them up but I don't know how to do that. I considered an digital photo frame that I can load with a whack of pictures, but I actually find those really distracting, what with their being backlit and their constantly changing photos. I would love to have a framed photo on my desk at work but even that makes me feel really vain or prideful or something. I have no clue what the hell I'm going to do when we get married and get our wedding pictures. I/we purposefully opted for NO prints of our engagement/wedding photos (getting them exclusively electronically) because I'd feel weird about hanging them up.

Giant picture, terrible quality

2bucksplus — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:49:58 -0800

Why does this happen: huge sized pictures with terrible image quality. As an example, this picture of a cat from reddit. It's apparently 3264 x 1840 (huge) but terrible quality even when zoomed out to fit my laptop screen. Compare it to this photo, much smaller at 600 x 450 but so much sharper.

I don't know all that much about photography but I'd guess the first photo was taken with a cellphone camera and the second with a 'real' camera, but is that all there is?

What specifically is happening to produce such horrible pictures so frequently?

Help me learn to get over the past and learn to like how I look.

5_buck_sock_pup — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:31:35 -0800

I hate being photographed and avoid mirrors because of emotional abuse in the past. How can I overcome this, and how can I make sure I don't give my kids messed up ideas? I grew up being told that I was fat, lazy, stupid and ugly, ugly, ugly.

Growing up was rough. I can't think in detail about my childhood because I start to cry. I was raised by parents who didn't like each other and didn't like me either. I was a sensitive kid, which didn't help at all. My earliest memories are of being afraid of my father getting angry because I didn't want to get yelled at.

It went beyond yelling, to a point that would warrant a call to child protective services today. For instance, I recall getting a "spanking" when I was 5 because my parents left me sleeping in the car, and I forgot to lock the car door when I woke up and came inside. What I remember is what the room looked like as my dad thew me across it.

I was also 5 when my parents told me how other children were born, but told me I was crapped out into a toilet. I cried and told them that it wasn't true, but they just laughed.

I was a beanpole shaped kid until I turned 8 and gained a bunch of weight all at once. It was hard being a chunky kid. There weren't any girls' clothes that would fit properly back then, and I ended up wearing those old school boys' Husky jeans from Sears. The kids were merciless, and so were my parents. I tried dieting but had no clue about nutrition at all, and stayed overweight. I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis very young and didn't know how I could exercise without bringing on a flare. My mother, who's naturally quite slim, amped up the "lazy" talk at that point but didn't actually do anything to help.

Then puberty hit, and I wound up with severe acne. I honestly looked like a pizza, it was that bad. I would look in the mirror and just cry. My dad once took me out shopping and, out of the blue, turned to me and said "you really are ugly." My parents took me to dermatologists, but there was no helping it. I tried absolutely everything, as my mother (who had acne until finishing menopause) piled make-up on me and the kids at school asked me if I ever washed my face. (The answer was yes, and probably too often.) The acne lasted until I went through two courses of accutane as an adult, and even recurred a few years after that. The acne has largely subsided as I've aged but my skin is still extremely oily.

In spite of being pizza-faced and overweight, I never had trouble getting a date, which mystifies me to this day. I won a scholarship to college and moved away from home on the day that the dorms opened. I married a wonderful man (after taking those courses of accutane before the wedding) and have two awesome children.

I also dropped 40 pounds, mostly because my metabolism changed after having kids. I know it works the other way around for most women, but for me, the weight just fell off. So, my acne's largely resolved, I'm thin (I wear a vanity-sized 2 or 4), and logically I know I can't be as ugly as I think since people don't run screaming when I enter a room. But, I haven't been able to get past thinking that I'm hideous.

Those fantastic kids of mine have a grand total of one family photograph with me in it. We don't have anything recent. The kids' school thought that my husband and I were divorced since the kids bring in photos with their dad but nothing with me.

I can't stand to be photographed and avoid it whenever I can. When a camera comes out, I practically run in the other direction. If I see a picture of myself, I zero in on every flaw, and there are lots. Every wrinkle, pouch, patch of leftover melasma - they're all I see, along with my giant nose, thinning hair and my tiny little deep-set eyes. I was looking through a friend's Facebook feed recently and saw a group photo from an event I was at. I scanned the group and actually failed to freaking recognize myself in the photo. Once I realized that one of the people was me, I was shocked at how normal I looked, until my brain started pulling up every problem with how I look.

Mirrors and I don't get along either. I can do a full face of makeup without a mirror, and when I'm around reflective surfaces, I look away from my reflection as much as I can. Places with mirrors make me actively anxious. Yesterday I went shopping for new clothes and saw myself in a dressing room mirror. I had to work to actually look at how I looked in the mirror to see how the clothes fit. I also zeroed in on how some parts of my body are lumpy, and my first thought was "I'm fat," but I'm not, dammit.

I'm at a point where my kids are old enough to be absorbing some of this, and I don't want it to contaminate them. I tell them every day how beautiful they are, but one of them has already pointed out that he looks like me and that I don't like how I look. I know it's not logical, either, and that I should be able to enjoy how I look or at least accept it. But it's not happening.

My mother still criticizes how I look every time I see her, which isn't often. Memorably, she came to visit me in the hospital right before I gave birth - right before I got wheeled into the delivery room - and whispered in my ear how awful my acne was and how terrible I looked. The other people in the room were taken aback when I told my mother out loud "that's nice, but there's really nothing I can do about that right now," as they didn't know why I was telling her that. It still stung, even though I knew at the time how out of line she was.

I've tried talking with my parents about the past, but they're not interested. They've told me that I must be making things up because they aren't like that. But I'm telling the truth.

I'm reluctant to pursue therapy just because of the time commitment, and because I've tried therapy before for depression and anxiety but didn't seem to get much out of it. I'm on medications for anxiety and depression and probably will be for life, but they aren't helping this.

What else can I do? Are there books or other resources for people like me? What has worked for others? And, most importantly, how can I stop this issue from affecting my children?